Welcoming Steve Mitchell, Author of Between Venus and Mars

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This week I'm happy to be hosting fellow Soulmate Publishing author Steve Mitchell. His newest story Between Venus and Mars, is featured in the Soulmate Tree Saga

An ancient legend spanning eras, continents, and worlds. To some, it’s nothing more than a dream. To others, a pretty fairy tale handed down through the generations.

For those in critical need of their own happy ending, a gift.

Once Upon a Galaxy . . .

Zana Starchild is on a mission to restore her tribe’s livestock and save herself from one more meal of kelp. Sure, it’s technically illegal to visit Old Earth, but to a rim rat like Zana, galactic laws are really just guidelines. Her wrecked starship just means she’ll need to use her backup plan to get off the abandoned world, an old Earth legend her uncle passed down to her.

Pulled from a relaxing shower, across the galaxy to Old Earth, Galactic Marshall Kyle Kepler finds himself naked and marooned with a quirky rim rat. Zana’s broken more laws than Kyle can count, and he plans to arrest her, just as soon as he can find transport off the planet and a pair of pants.

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A junk heap of a starship, a magical tree, and a roving gang of mutant kangaroos are just the beginning of rollicking intergalactic journey filled with laughs, love, and adventure.

When series collide: Between Venus and Mars is not only set the multi-dimensional worlds of the Soul Mate Tree legend, but also ties into my Hearts in Orbit series, a futuristic universe filled with starships, aliens, and new technologies. And, of course, romance. The Soul Mate Tree project offered me a great way to play with some new characters and further develop my universe, while partnering with some of the best authors in the business.
The Hearts in Orbit universe is a place where galactic marshals keep the peace in the cosmopolitan Core Worlds as well as the wild-west type rim world planets. While this book works as a standalone, and you don’t have to have read any of the others, I consider it Hearts in Orbit 2.5, fitting nicely between Pirates of the Dark Nebula and my soon-to-be-released Hearts in Orbit 3 novel Captives of the Kratzen.


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Sounds wonderful, Steve.

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing

     I’m just a guy who reads, writes, and loves romance. I also dabble in science fiction and fantasy, but haven’t published anything in those genres yet.

Do you write full time? 

     I’ve been writing for over 30 years, but seven years ago I decided to quit my job as an IT professional and pursue my passion to write romance full time.

What are your writing inspirations?

     Earliest inspirations were Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Anne McCaffrey. After I started reading romance I gravitated toward Nora Roberts and Sherrilyn Kenyon.

How did you come to write this story?

     I was approached by my editor to be part of an author cooperative venture the Soul Mate Publishing was launching. The Soul Mate Tree project brought together multiple authors to complete thirteen books that will be released throughout the year. Between Venus and Mars is my contribution to this collection.

Is this book part of a series as well?

     Yes times two. Between Venus and Mars not only is part of the Soul Mate Tree Saga, but the story also exists in my Hearts in Orbit universe. While it is still a stand-alone work it does use characters and elements from that series. I consider it Hearts in Orbit 2.5 as it fits chronologically between Pirates of the Dark Nebula, and my upcoming third book, Captives of the Kratzen.

Tell us a bit about the characters and who we might be meeting in the future.

     Zana Starchild is a “rim rat,” a young lady from a lower-tech, agrarian planet on the rim of the galaxy. Kyle Kepler is a Galactic Marshal from one of the Core Worlds. It’s a “city mouse/country mouse kind of story. Their story is complete here, so they probably won’t be popping up again in future stories.

     One character who probably will is devil-may-care, bad boy, Galactic Marshal Kirklund T. Jameson. He also appeared in Pirates of the Dark Nebula and will most definitely need his own book someday.

What project will you be working on next?

     I just finished up work on Hearts in Orbit 3: Captives of the Kratzen, and I plan on letting my muse fly free for a few weeks among the half dozen projects I have on the back burner. I probably have time to finish one of them before diving into my next major project, a 3-book Demons and Angels series that will allow me to finish the storyline I started in my Demons Rising trilogy.

One surprising or interesting fact about yourself.

     The most surprising thing about me for many people is that I’m a guy. There aren’t a lot of men writing romance, though probably more than you would think. Whether that’s also interesting, I’m not so sure. It’s just who I am. 

Is there anything else about yourself you'd like to tell us about yourself or your writing?

     My writing is probably more influenced by movies and current pop culture than other books. I try to bring “big budget Hollywood” elements to my writing. Think Lord of the Rings, Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, but as the backdrop for a traditional romance novel. My stories still center around two people finding their happy ever after, but with lots of explosions happening outside the bedroom as well.

Thanks, Steve. And I'm really glad there are several male romance authors who have graced the pages of this blog. I  get notes from male romance readers all the time. Good luck, and come back soon!

Hidden strengths, adventurous hearts.

S.C.Mitchell grew up an avid reader of comic books, science fiction and fantasy literature. He’s been writing stories for over thirty years. In 2010 he left his job as a computer desktop support specialist to pursue his passion for writing full time. He is a member of the Romance Writers of America as well as the Wisconsin chapter.

As a writer of paranormal and sci-fi romance, fantasy, and science fiction, Steve crafts unique and wondrous worlds where his characters explore, romp, and fall in love. Whether traveling through dark, demon filled dimensions, the edge of wild space, or ancient mythological heavens, his heroes and heroines, guided by their adventurous hearts, discover hidden strengths on their pathway to enduring love.

You’ll find him at:

http://scmitchellauthor.com/

Blog: http://scmitchellauthor.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSCMitchell

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuthorSMitchell

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007D0Z1MW

Introducing Science Fiction Writer and Broad Universe Member Stacey Bryan-Author of Day for Night

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When reality TV star Rae Miller is kicked unceremoniously to the curb by her back-stabbing cast mates, she quickly realizes that revenge fantasies and unemployment are the least of her problems after she witnesses an alien abduction in broad daylight. Worse, after escaping a terrifying almost-abduction herself, Rae succumbs to a sexy Nosferatu’s silky assurances, becoming undead in order to up her alien Ultimate Fighting skills. Life is hard as a 38-to-40-something aspiring actress in L.A. Thank God for Jack Daniel’s and denial.


I'm welcoming Stacey Bryan with a tale she has spun out of Tinseltown--Los Angeles, California. Perhaps the only place besides New York City I've been where reality blends with fantasy so easily.

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley where I was a loner and climbed a lot of trees. My black cat, Mr. Smith, followed me everywhere. Although I was accident prone, I was in gymnastics from seven to seventeen and never broke any bones. I buried my head in books to avoid socializing and eventually began to write my own stories. Later, my writing mentor, novelist Brian Moore, suggested gently that I shouldn’t traverse into “second reality,” and I remained firmly planted in “first reality” for years until I realized I enjoyed laughing and fantasy more than writing about depressing and serious topics.

Do you write full time? If not, what is your "other occupation?"

I caption for the hearing impaired which, yes, does involve watching TV shows and movies for a living, but has become increasingly more technical and “output heavy” since I started, with  surprisingly less emphasis on grammar and punctuation. I think it’s the beginning of the fall of civilization, personally.


Not that it seems hard to guess, given the presence of the film industry in your neighborhood, but what are your writing inspirations?

Someone can say something odd, and it’ll inspire a story. I can hear certain music. Movies like All the Mornings of the World, Map of the Human Heart, and There will be Blood inspire me. And, of course, authors like Octavia Butler, Cormac McCarthy, Tama Janowitz.

How did you come to write this story?

I wrote a short story about a woman minding her own business when bizarre things start to happen that was light and tongue in cheek. It was fun to write, and then it was well-accepted by an online magazine, so I decided to expand it into a novel.

Is this book part of a series?

This is book one in what will become a series. 

So, tell us a bit about the characters and who we might be meeting in the future.

Although it’s a standalone, I can say right now that I left a few things intentionally murky, like why the main protagonist, Rae, a wannabe actress with very little talent, has such a devoted agent, why the Moorish physical therapist she’s dating can’t say his brother’s name without a hitch in his voice, how it was possible that Rae was under water for 15 minutes as a child and didn’t sustain brain damage, and what it means that she’s always had “magic” in her life but just never noticed it.


Give us one surprising or interesting fact about yourself.

According to my mother, I didn’t smile until I was almost two years old when I was given bread to eat for the first time.

Is there anything else about yourself you'd like to tell us about yourself or your writing?

Part of me wishes I’d come of age in an earlier time. I heard a story about an author from the ‘30s or ‘40s, possibly John Fante--but don’t quote me on this--who wrote some chapters on toilet paper and sent them in to his publisher.

Part of me wants to write chapters on toilet paper and mail them in that way to the publisher, because I’m not sure anyone in the world is more inept and out of sync with the whole social media thing than I am. 

But another part of me wouldn’t want to live in that time, either, because I’ve come to realize that I can’t really write longhand anymore, like with a pen and paper. My hand actually begins to cramp up. So in the end, whether I want to be or not, I am a child of the future. So I guess it’s best to just accept that.

Wow, I can relate to all your statements. I'd have liked more time to really be an author. And my handwriting is so bad that no one--not even me--can read it. 



Excerpt from: Day for Night

The world came to an end on a balmy Tuesday evening while I was doing laundry in my Glendale apartment building. Not on a Monday so I could start off the week fresh with the apocalypse, knowing just where I stood. Or a Friday so I could say, “Thank God, it’s the weekend. I need to de-stress from the End of Days.” It was a Tuesday. Four weeks to the day that I had been voted off one of the most popular reality shows running: Muscle Beach Midlife: Sand in your Face. I guess it didn’t matter that Muscle Midlife had no voting. Details, schmetails. They did it anyway, and it made for good TV. If ratings were sharks, I was the bloody, mashed-up chum.

I was multitasking. For me, this involved doing laundry while I mused about regret. What better time to muse on the nature of regret than when the world was about to end? Of course, I had no idea such was the case as I made my way deeper into Single White Female territory—my building’s dank basement—gripping my basket tight and my rage tighter. I shouldn’t even be here. Forced out of escrow on my dream condo in Hermosa Beach, bad timing left me scrambling, and I’d ended up here, surrounded by elderly Armenian gentlemen who seemed to disapprove of women wearing pants. Parents? They lived out of state. Sister Margarite? Not an option in this life or the next. You found out fast who your real friends were when you got kicked off a TV show. When anything went wrong in this town, Los Angeles, especially if even remotely connected to The Biz, you’d blink twice and find yourself in the middle of a boiling, empty desert with nothing but the cacti and a lizard doing pushups on a rock. Two handfuls of “friends” condensed overnight down to just Hama and Rex.

So, back to regret, back to the end of the world. An overall discontent, kick-started by Sand in your Face, had bogarted its way past the borders, routed the castle walls. The castle being the state of denial I lived in, discontent being reality. It was funny that I was thinking of reality as I neared the laundry room, basket on my hip, because I was expecting a certain series of circumstances ahead of me. I was expecting the machines to all be occupied, except for one, which wouldn’t be enough to accommodate my load. I was expecting the light bulb to be stuttering in its usual migraine-inducing pattern. Even before I arrived, I could hear them all busily humming. All the machines, all being used. The one poster on the wall would be there, Truffaut’s Day for Night, dusty, the plastic cover cracked in one corner. I even expected my right shoulder to jackknife with pain when I hitched the basket up on my hip. It was injured almost a year ago after a failed Pap smear attempt. 


What I wasn’t expecting was to turn the corner and find my thirty-something neighbor Annie, eyes open, silent, encased by a cone of light and suspended in midair just inside the doorway. Nope. Wasn’t expecting that at all. Floating beside her was the small, big-headed creature I’d seen a million times on TV and in the movies, so hilariously clichéd that I laughed out loud. There were some young filmmakers in the building. It must be an experiment, a joke. But then the creature turned, and it just wasn’t funny anymore.

Thanks for sharing, Stacey. I remember the phrase 'beautiful downtown Burbank!"
Good luck with the series! Where can readers find you?

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Stacey was raised in the San Fernando Valley but born in San Francisco, where she left part of her heart. She has worked on a dude ranch, coached gymnastics, and captions for the hearing impaired. Her work has appeared in several literary magazines in New York and L.A., including Ginosko and The Rag. She is currently working on the sequel to her novel Day for Night. She lives in “beautiful downtown Burbank,” as Johnny Carson used to say, with her husband who is also a writer.